Links:
Archaeology of the Americas, Palaeoarchaeology, Historical archaeology,
Zooarchaeology
Ecological Constraints and Drivers for Human Dispersals and Adaptations in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Environments of the East Siberian Arctic
Vladimir V. Pitulko Elena Y. Pavlova
2023
The MIS 3–2 environments of the middle Kolyma Basin: implications for the Ice Age peopling of northeast Arctic Siberia
2021
Late Pleistocene exploration and settlement of the Americas by modern humans
Outlook excerpts:
The key to learning more about the first Americans is investigating archaeological sites with solid geological contexts that are accurately dated. Only rigorously investigated sites using the best practices of archeology, geoarchaeology, and geochronology will provide the primary and pivotal data to interpret the past. Analysis of biomolecules, including DNA, proteins, and lipids from these sites, will enhance environmental reconstructions and archaeological interpretations.
The ancestral history of the earliest peoples in the Americas will be realized as genetic knowledge from living populations and ancient individuals is combined with archaeological, geological, ethnographic, and oral records. This will require scientists and Indigenous peoples working as partners to uncover the past.
Fladmark + 40: What Have We Learned about a Potential Pacific Coast Peopling of the Americas?
Todd J. Braje , Jon M. Erlandson, Torben C. Rick, Loren Davis, Tom Dillehay,Daryl W. Fedje, Duane Froese, Amy Gusick, Quentin Mackie, Duncan McLaren, Bonnie Pitblado, Jennifer Raff, Leslie Reeder-Myers, and Michael R. Waters
Routes: Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America
_by Knut Fladmark (1979)
...."An alternative initial migration route for early man may be offered by a chain of sea-level refugia around the North Pacific coast of North America. These would have been more environmentally suitable for human occupation than any interior ice-free areas, and marine littoral resources would have provided a relatively abundant living for any people possessing simple watercraft".
Forty years ago, Knut Fladmark (1979) argued that the Pacific Coast offered a viable alternative to the ice-free corridor model
for the initial peopling of the Americas—one of the first to support a “coastal migration theory” that remained marginal for
decades. Today, the pre-Clovis occupation at the Monte Verde site is widely accepted, several other pre-Clovis sites are well
documented, investigations of terminal Pleistocene subaerial and submerged Pacific Coast landscapes have increased, and
multiple lines of evidence are helping decode the nature of early human dispersals into the Americas.
Misconceptions remain,
however, about the state of knowledge, productivity, and deglaciation chronology of Pleistocene coastlines and possible
technological connections around the Pacific Rim. We review current evidence for several significant clusters of early Pacific
Coast archaeological sites in North and South America that include sites as old or older than Clovis. We argue that stemmed
points, foliate points, and crescents (lunates) found around the Pacific Rim may corroborate genomic studies that support an
early Pacific Coast dispersal route into the Americas. Still, much remains to be learned about the Pleistocene colonization of
the Americas, and multiple working hypotheses are warranted.
Questions persist about the timing and
nature of a potential terminal Pleistocene coastal
dispersal of [anatomically modern humans] AMH from Northeast Asia into the
Americas, but we now know that from Canada
to California, Mexico, Peru, and Chile, some of
the first peoples in the Americas exploited a
wide range of marine and estuarine resources;
used stemmed points, foliate bifaces, lunates
(crescents), and other technologies; and likely
constructed relatively sophisticated watercraft.
Such findings would have been deemed implausible to most archaeologists just 30 years ago...
...much remains to be learned about the Pleistocene colonization of
the Americas, and multiple working hypotheses are warranted.
...Shattering the Clovis barrier was critical in
advancing research on the peopling of the Americas over the last few decades, and interdisciplinary research of both coastal and interior routes will be crucial for moving forward in the twentyfirst century
Climate, Technology, and Glaciers: The Settlement of the Western Hemisphere
Abstract excerpt:
A major problem in human prehistory is the late settlement of the Americas, which were not occupied until after 15,000 years ago from Beringia. The most likely barriers to earlier settlement are: 1) high-latitude environments (characterized by low biological productivity and extreme winter temperatures); and 2) the North American ice sheet complex, which probably blocked both coastal and interior migration routes between Beringia and NW North America at various times before 15,000 years ago...
The Thule Migrations as an Analog for the Early Peopling of the Americas: Evaluating Scenarios of Overkill, Trade, Climate Forcing, and Scalar Stress
Review article
Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada
Horse exploitation by Beringian hunters during the Last Glacial Maximum
Highlights:
•
Human presence in the Yukon between 23,500 and 18,000 years BP.
•
Bluefish Caves served as a hunting camp to intercept horse and other prey.
•
Human hunters possibly linked to the extinction of North American Pleistocene horse.
Revisiting the mammoth bone modifications from Bluefish Caves (YT, Canada)
Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre Zoom video - from 2021
Collapse of the mammoth-steppe in central Yukon as revealed by ancient environmental DNA
Fifty thousand years of Arctic vegetation
Eske Willerslev_2014
Rapid range shifts and megafaunal extinctions associated with late Pleistocene climate change
Arctic Beringia and Native American Origins
John F Hoffecker_2020
Abstract excerpt:
The central lowland of Beringia (aka the Bering land bridge) has been viewed alternately as a barrier or a refugium to the Native American founder population during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Here we suggest that an equally – if not more – likely LGM home for the founder population is the arctic zone of Beringia..
Beringia and the Settlement of the Western Hemisphere
J. F. Hoffecker, V. V. Pitulko, E. Y. Pavlova [2022]
The population movements conceivably were driven by (a) inun-
dation of continental shelf areas <16 ka (including the southern BLB coast), and (b) the
rapid growth of population along the NW Pacific coast, supported by a rise in marine
productivity (see above).
We suspect the latter generated population expansion to the north — as well as to-
wards mid-latitude North America — resulting in the simultaneous spread of people into
southern and central Beringia. Conceivably, the NW Pacific coast was a source for the
Tanana Valley sites via the deglaciated Copper River system, while the similarities be-
tween the stemmed points in Kamchatka and early stemmed points in mid-latitude North
America (Western Stemmed Tradition) may reflect a common NW Pacific coast source
65
(Fig. 8). The issue may be resolved by discovery and analysis of aDNA from human re-
mains associated with the sites that contain various bifacial point types, which should
represent the ANA population (versus their APS source population)
66
.
Nunataks and valley glaciers: Over the mountains and through the ice
Current evidence allows multiple models for the peopling of the Americas
Ben A. Potter et al_2018
Abstract excerpt:
Some recent academic and popular literature implies that the problem of the colonization of the Americas has been largely resolved in favor of one specific model: a Pacific coastal migration, dependent on high marine productivity, from the Bering Strait to South America, thousands of years before Clovis, the earliest widespread cultural manifestation south of the glacial ice. Speculations on maritime adaptations and typological links (stemmed points) across thousands of kilometers have also been advanced...
Current Understanding of the Earliest Human Occupations in the Americas: Evaluation of Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020)
Ben Potter et al_2021
Ice and ocean constraints on early human migrations into North America along the Pacific coast
Jon M. Erlandson et al [2023]
Growing evidence for a human presence in the Americas prior to 15,000 y ago—when ice sheets blocked transit through the continental interior—imply a Pacific Coast route was the more likely pathway for dispersals from Beringia into North America between ~26,000 and 14,000 y ago. The feasibility of coastal migration at various times depended on the extent of Cordilleran glaciers, sea ice, the strength of ocean currents, and the productivity and availability of marine and terrestrial resources. Based on paleoclimate records and climate models, we estimate that 24,500 to 22,000 and 16,400 to 14,800 y ago were the most environmentally favorable time windows for a coastal migration during the period when the interior route was blocked.
See Ocean Currents and Migration by Watercraft.
excerpt:
Expanded area of coastal land due to the retreat of marine-terminating glaciers, warmer climate conditions, and the attenuation of strong ocean currents may have facilitated greater ease of coastal movement and accommodated larger populations, consistent with an increase in evidence for coastal occupation after ~14 ka in British Columbia, Haida Gwaii, Oregon, and the Channel Islands.
Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas
The archaeology of submerged prehistoric sites on the North Pacific Coast of North America
Deglaciation of the north American ice sheet complex in calendar years based on a comprehensive database of chronological data: NADI-1
The Haida Gwaii archipelago showing the location of Kilgii Gwaay
Late Pleistocene vegetation and sedimentary charcoal at Kilgii Gwaay archaeological site in coastal British Columbia, Canada, with possible proxy evidence for human presence by 13,000 cal bp
Abstract
Kilgii Gwaay is an early Holocene archaeological wet site located in the intertidal zone of Ellen Island in the southern Haida Gwaii archipelago of coastal British Columbia, Canada. The Kilgii site includes one of the oldest shell middens in western North America and provides evidence of early maritime adaptations by humans. Radiocarbon-dated cultural deposits that surround a small palaeopond (Kilgii Pond) include hearth features, abundant lithic, bone and wood artifacts, and a diverse fossil fauna and flora. The known occupation dates between 10,800 and 10,500 cal bp, when relative sea level was 1–3 m lower than today. The site was submerged and capped by marine deposits by 10,500 cal bp as relative sea level rose. We conducted multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental analyses (magnetic susceptibility, pollen, charcoal, macrofossils) on Kilgii Pond sediments from a core taken beneath the coarse intertidal deposits. Pollen analysis indicates establishment of herb–shrub tundra by 14,500 cal bp, followed by pine-dominated communities after 13,800 cal bp and spruce forest with abundant ferns from about 13,250 cal bp. Macroscopic charcoal in the core is most abundant during the period of confirmed human occupation; however, significant peaks in charcoal abundance are present well below the known occupation horizon. Since lightning and natural forest fires are infrequent in this wet hypermaritime setting, we consider that the charcoal peaks from Kilgii Pond may serve as a proxy for human presence, potentially as early as 13,000 cal bp, approximately 2,200 years earlier than indicated by the AMS-dated cultural deposits and artifacts.
Archaeology and Sea Level Change on the British Columbia Coast
Mackie, Fedje, McLaren
Canadian Journal of Archaeology Vol. 42, No. 1 (2018), pp. 74-91
Discussion excerpts:
The data from Haida Gwaii, and
emerging from Hakai and Quadra
Islands, based marine collector system. Such a
settlement pattern involves a few large
base camps and many satellite special
purpose sites, which can be expected
to be small and have low visibility. At
Triquet Island (Gauvreau and McLaren
2017) and Calvert Island (McLaren et al.
2018) occupation from at least 14,000-13,000
years ago to the present - with their paddles for the prime place
to live..
Boats clearly allow people to haul
themselves, gear and resources around
the landscape in a way which defies
the normal settlement continuum of
forager-collector (Ames 2002) .
the coast had boats also provides new
directions to think of the settlement
sequence on the coast. For many years,
the assumption was that a terrestrial
adaptation slowly became comfortable
on the coast (Matson and Coupland
1995). This has clearly been made less
tenable by the serious doubts about the
ice-free corridor model and the evidence
for early maritime adaptations from
Kilgii Gwaay [Haida Gwaii]
Late Pleistocene palaeoenvironments and a possible glacial refugium on northern Vancouver Island, Canada: Evidence for the viability of early human settlement on the northwest coast of North America
5.3. Implications for late Pleistocene human settlement on the northwest coast of North America
Northern Vancouver Island during the local glacial maximum has previously been characterized as a barrier of ice and otherwise harsh environmental conditions which hindered the movement of early peoples arriving in the region (e.g., Mathews, 1979; Clague and James, 2002). However, geological and palaeoecological studies have now established widespread glacial retreat along various parts of coastal BC and Alaska by at least ca. 17,000 cal BP.
The data also help to address the oft-raised issue of limited food and resources for humans in paraglacial or other biotically depauperate environments. Several studies (e.g., Mackie et al., 2011; Bjerck and Zangrando, 2013; Breivik, 2014; Fletcher, 2015; Bjerck et al., 2016; Breivik et al., 2016; Bjerck, 2017) discuss these concerns and propose human use of various types of resources (e.g., pinnipeds for food; Salix or other shrubs for tools) and technologies (e.g., flexible skin boats) in postglacial non-arboreal environments.
Postglacial relative sea level histories of northern Vancouver Island, Canada
A revised sea level history for the northern Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada
Identifying Sites of High Geoarchaeological Potential Using Aerial LIDAR and GIS on Quadra Island, Canada.
download full-text PDF
LiDAR – Abbreviation for Light Detection and Ranging. Uses laser technology to map surfaces. Airborne LiDAR sends multiple beams of light towards the ground and measures how long it takes for the beams to bounce back to a sensor. The data is combined with GPS data to generate geospatial measurements that can be used to create digital elevation models, contour maps, etc.
Archaeology of the Lower Fraser River Region
Karst caves in Haida Gwaii: Archaeology and paleontology at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition
Geo-archaeology and Haí?zaqv oral history: Long-term human investment and resource use at EkTb-9, Triquet Island, N?úláw?itx?v Tribal Area, Central Coast, British Columbia, Canada
“In the beginning there was nothing but water and ice, and a narrow strip of shoreline.” (Farrand, 1916)
Excerpt :
The contemporary archaeological and oceanographic hypothesis is that travel along the Pacific Rim and southward from Beringia would have required marine vessels (skin-boats, rafts, and vessels made with materials of local origin) to transport people and goods (Barrie and Conway, 2002; Cannon et al., 1999; Erlandson and Braje, 2011; Heusser, 1960; Letham et al., 2020). Vessels are therefore assumed to be the primary mode of transportation utilized along the proposed coastal route (Barrie and Conway, 2002; Cannon et al., 1999; Erlandson and Braje, 2011; Heusser, 1960; Letham et al., 2020). Due to the relative stability of the regional sea level, Triquet Island has been an island since at least 15,000 years ago, which means settlement would have necessitated paddling between the mainland and other islands in between (approximately 25 km).
Terminal Pleistocene epoch human footprints from the Pacific coast of Canada
Abstract
Little is known about the ice age human occupation of the Pacific Coast of Canada. Here we present the results of a targeted investigation of a late Pleistocene shoreline on Calvert Island, British Columbia. Drawing upon existing geomorphic information that sea level in the area was 2–3 m lower than present between 14,000 and 11,000 years ago, we began a systematic search for archaeological remains dating to this time period beneath intertidal beach sediments. During subsurface testing, we uncovered human footprints impressed into a 13,000-year-old paleosol beneath beach sands at archaeological site EjTa-4. To date, our investigations at this site have revealed a total of 29 footprints of at least three different sizes. The results presented here add to the growing body of information pertaining to the early deglaciation and associated human presence on the west coast of Canada at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum.
Discussion excerpt:
Footprints 8 and 9 (Fig 6) are side-by-side left and right footprints suggestive of someone standing with their feet slightly apart and facing northwestwards and inland with their back to the prevailing winds. The footprints were impressed into a soil just above the paleo-shoreline, possibly by a group of people disembarking from watercraft and moving towards a drier central activity area to the north or northwest.
Endowment, investment, and the transforming coast: Long-term human-environment interactions and territorial proprietorship in the Prince Rupert Harbour, Canada
Estimating Volumes of Coastal Shell Midden Sites Using Geometric Solids
An Example from Tseshaht [Nuu-chah-nulth] Territory, [Barkley Sound, Broken Island group] Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
Our analysis affirms that the Broken Group Islands were a densely inhabited coastal landscape and were substantially modified by the human activity represented in shell midden deposits. Over more than 5,000 years, Indigenous peoples living in this archipelago generated tens of thousands of cubic meters of sediment, including tens of millions of shellfish, fish, marine mammals, birds, and other organisms and cultural materials. The legacy of this long-term human activity is intimately connected to the historical ecology of this coastal region, but the extent and scale of this activity is not well recognized. We estimate the volume of archaeological shell midden sediments deposited in the Broken Group Islands (90,640 ± 2,719 m3) to be collectively equivalent to the volume estimates of famous monumental structures elsewhere in the Americas, such as the temples of Tikal (Webster and Kirker Reference Webster and Kirker1995) or the many mounds in the North American Southeast and Midwest (Shenkel Reference Shenkel1986:214–215). These features in their totality represent the outcome of multiple generations of substantial labor and energy, especially considering the effort required to harvest materials in these deposits.
Zhokhov Island in the Siberian High Arctic; long-distance (1,500km) exchange of obsidian during the Early Holocene
Excerpt:
It is unlikely that the inhabitants of the Zhokhov site procured obsidian directly from the Lake Krasnoe source. It lies far beyond the maximum direct supply zone for resources (around 300km) proposed by Renfrew (1975), and the obsidian is therefore most likely to have been acquired through exchange. Importantly, according to Renfrew’s (1975) model, the transportation of resources, which is assumed to have occurred on foot, could not have been over distances greater than 300km (taking 7–10 days one way). In winter time, such a journey required particular skills and technology, such as skiing or the use of snow shoes, both of which were common elsewhere in the Arctic from at least the Early Holocene (Weinstock 2005). While journeys on foot were costly in terms of time, labour and energy, walking allowed for the creation of an exchange network, the scale of which could be expanded significantly by the use of transportation, such as watercraft or animal-powered systems.
The-Zhokhov-Island-Site
The Zhokhov Island Mesolithic Site
Vladimir V. Pitul’ko
Origins and spread of fluted-point technology in the Canadian Ice-Free Corridor and eastern Beringia
After decades of study and tenuous connections to traditions in the Far North such as the
Denali or Nenana complexes, we now know that
Clovis technology was a New World invention,
a conclusion supported by recent morphometric
and cladistic analyses.
Article in American Antiquity · October 2019
DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2019.80
Stemmed Points and the Ice-Free Corridor
Article in American Antiquity · October 2019
DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2019.80
"Beck and Jones (2010) reignited a longstanding debate in western North American
archaeology, arguing that the Western Stemmed
Tradition (WST) was technologically distinct
from Clovis, potentially older, and possibly
related to a coastal dispersal of people from
northeast Asia into the Americas. Critics have
challenged this hypothesis (Potter, Baichtal
et al. 2018), arguing that stems are not technologically or temporally diagnostic and that there
has been no detailed technological study connecting the widely varied stemmed point types
found scattered from Japan to Kamchatka, the
PNW and California Islands, and South America
(see Erlandson and Braje 2011)."
A late Pleistocene human presence at Huaca Prieta, Peru, and early Pacific Coastal adaptations
Archaeological Evidence for an Early Human Presence at Monte Verde, Chile
Pre-Clovis occupation 14,550 years ago at the Page-Ladson site, Florida, and the peopling of the Americas
Pre-Clovis projectile points at the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas—Implications for the Late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas
Evidence of an early projectile point technology in North America at the Gault Site, Texas, USA
Dating of a large tool assemblage at the Cooper’s Ferry site (Idaho, USA) to ~15,785 cal yr B.P. extends the age of stemmed points in the Americas
Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago
Archaeologists find new evidence in Southern Oregon that suggests human habitation 18,000 years ago
A 2023 radiocarbon dating analysis was made based on findings at the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter near Burns, Oregon.
Exploring new discoveries from ancient humans who once roamed Oregon’s Great Basin
Oregon’s Great Basin holds some of the oldest archeological finds in North America, including the world’s oldest known footwear.
Late glacial through Early Holocene environments inferred using pollen from coprolites and sediments recovered from Paisley Caves, Oregon
Abstract excerpt:
The Paisley Cave archeological site in the Northern Great Basin has provided a rich archaeological record from 13,000 to 6000 cal yr BP, including abundant mammalian coprolites preserved in a well-dated stratigraphy.
Fiber Artifacts from the Paisley Caves: 14,000 Years of Plant Selection in the Northern Great Basin
Abstract excerpt:
Paleoethnobotanical remains from basketry and cordage from the Paisley Caves offer an opportunity to explore how people engaged with plant communities over time. Fiber identification of textiles, together with radiocarbon dating, contributes new information about landscape use within the Summer Lake Basin.
Simple technologies and diverse food strategies of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene at Huaca Prieta, Coastal Peru
Comment on “Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum”
Bennett et al. (Reports, 24 September 2021, p. 1528) report human footprints from Lake Otero, New Mexico, USA ~22,000 years ago. Critical assessment suggests that their radiocarbon chronology may be inaccurate. Reservoir effects may have caused radiocarbon ages to appear thousands of years too old. Independent verification of the ages of the footprint horizons is imperative and is possible through other means.
Independent age estimates resolve the controversy of ancient human footprints at White Sands
Editor’s summary
Traditionally, researchers believed that humans arrived in North America around 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. Recently, however, evidence has accumulated supporting a much earlier date. In 2021, fossilized footprints from White Sands National Park in New Mexico were dated to between 20,000 and 23,000 years ago, providing key evidence for earlier occupation, although this finding was controversial. Pigati et al. returned to the White Sands footprints and obtained new dates from multiple, highly reliable sources (see the Perspective by Philippsen). They, too, resolved dates of 20,000 to 23,000 years ago, reconfirming that humans were present far south of the ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum. —Sacha Vignieri
Tests confirm footprints preserved in mud in New Mexico were made by humans thousands of years before any people were thought to be in the Americas (more than 20,000 years ago)
"analysis of these footprints, using two different techniques, confirms the date, providing seemingly incontrovertible proof that humans were already living in North America during the height of the last Ice Age".
Additional reading
Haida Gwaii: Human History and Environment from the Time of Loon to the Time of the Iron People
by Daryl W. Fedje (Editor), Rolf Mathewes (Editor)
The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory
Thomas D Dillehay (Author)
Since 1977, archaeologist Tom Dillehay has been unearthing conclusive evidence of human habitation in the Americas at least 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, settling a bitter debate and demolishing the standard scientific account of the settlement of the Americas. The question of how people first came to the Americas is now thrown wide open: the best guess is that they arrived from a variety of places, at many different times and by many different routes.
Seal Hunters, Fishermen and Sea-voyagers. Late Middle Neolithic (2600–2400 cal BC) Maritime Hunter-gatherers in the Baltic Sea Archipelago at Tråsättra, Sweden
Magnus Artursson, Niclas Björck, Karl-Fredrik Lindberg
Compiled by Jeff Schlingloff ©2025 email: [email protected]
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